TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Seven Taiwanese tourists were reported dead after their bus crashed into a river in China’s Fujian Province, reports said Friday.

The tour bus, carrying 24 tourists and two guides back to the town of Xiamen, reportedly overturned during a torrential downpour shortly after noon and landed in the Jiulong River in Zhangzhou, reports said.

Rescuers found 19 people, three of who were seriously injured, but seven were still missing, initially believed to have been swept away by the swollen river waters. The missing were reported as seven Taiwanese tourists. The Taiwanese guide accompanying the group, Chen Yu-ying, was reportedly among the people saved from the bus.

A rescue team armed with a heavy crane reportedly found the bodies of the seven missing travelers still inside the bus after they lifted the vehicle out of the water.

The group had left Taipei for Xiamen on Thursday and was planning to return to Taiwan on Sunday, reports said. The tour operator was named as Wufu Travel, and most of the tour members were friends from the Hsinchu area. The original itinerary for Friday had been changed because heavy rain made visit to one site too difficult, according to media reports.

Relatives of the Taiwanese travelers would leave for Zhangzhou later on Friday, while some others would join them Saturday, reports said.

The survivors were all staying at the Zhangzhou Hospital, with two or three so gravely injured they had to be operated on, reports said.

The travel agency had arranged insurance of NT$2 million (US$66,000) for accidental death and NT$100,000 (US$3,300) for hospital treatment, reports said.